Episode 6

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Published on:

9th Mar 2020

Ep. 6 John Stewart, Partner, MiddleGround Capital

John Stewart is a Partner at MiddleGround, a private equity firm focused on Industrials & Specialty Distribution companies. He is responsible for overall management of the firm and management of the Investment Team with Lauren Mulholland. John started his career as an hourly line worker at Toyota Motor Corporation and held numerous management and executive positions over an 18-year career. John made the move to private equity in 2007, joining Monomoy Capital as an Operating Partner. In 2010, John was named the Head of Operations and built out the Operations Group over the next six years with Scot Duncan. In 2016, John became a Partner. Throughout his career, John has worked on numerous transactions and served on the Board of Directors of nearly 20 businesses across both middle market and Fortune 100 companies.

Topics:

- Upbringing in Kentucky

- Starting as a second shift team member at Toyota putting bumpers on Camrys, to managing 7,000 people and being the first American to be promoted to run a division for Toyota Motor

- Moving to private equity

- Co-founding MiddleGround with Lauren Mulholland and Scot Duncan

- Leadership & life lessons

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About the Podcast

Investors & Operators

A Podcast by 51 Labs

The M&A market can be boring, but everyone has a story. The Investors & Operators podcast is about discovering the stories people were holding back, didn’t know how to tell, or forgot about. The goal is simple: fresh, authentic storytelling to bring people together in the M&A community.

With over 1M organic views and counting on LinkedIn, 51 Labs is disrupting the M&A market through the use of videography and content creation. In a market that longs for authenticity, 51 Labs helps strengthen your brand and tell your story. From concept to distribution, we strategize and produce thoughtful content to be used across a multitude of channels, to help you stand out in an otherwise traditionally boring market.

New episodes every other Thursday at 6:00am Eastern.

About your host

Jordan Selleck

Founder. Recovering Investment Banker. 3x Entrepreneur. Philz Coffee Enthusiast.

Jordan Selleck is a recovering investment banker turned 3x entrepreneur. While teaching English in China, Jordan met an investment banker in a bar and before he knew it he’d spent six years in cross-border investment banking advising global corporates and private equity firms on M&A deals up to $250 million.

As much as Jordan loved investment banking, he always knew he was meant to do something more. In 2016, Jordan founded Debtmaven, a deal management platform for debt financing in the lower middle market. It was while he was marketing Debtmaven on LinkedIn that Jordan found his true passion: building meaningful relationships in the lower middle market.

Seeing over 50% of Debtmaven’s $450million+ in deals come from LinkedIn, he realized he’d found an untapped market and began his journey with LinkedIn consulting. Dozens of clients and a handful of extraordinarily talented employees later, 51 Labs is a thriving marketing agency for the lower middle market that produces captivating content and generates organic traffic across LinkedIn.

Jordan was born in San Diego, grew up in North Carolina and attended UNC-Chapel Hill. He has traveled to 32 countries, lived in China for 18 months, trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, is a fourth-generation private pilot, SCUBA dives, speaks Mandarin Chinese, and is a husband and father of 2.